To Walk In Her Shoes With Her Feet
by Aisuru1
Summary: Jareth makes a careless wish; the Labyrinth grants his request. Jareth finds himself walking his own Labyrinth in Sarah's mortal body. And Sarah is Jareth? Is this a chance for a loving villain and a cruel heroine to see each other through new eyes?
1. 1a

Title: To Walk In Her Shoes (With Her Feet)  
Author: Aisuru  
Email: aisuru_chan@yahoo.com  
URL: N/A  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Response to Princess Destiny's one-hour challenge #40; Chapter 1a was written in one hour, although the challenge was not met in that portion. All subsequent part-chapters were also written in one hour or less to keep with the challenge. In Jareth's Underground, there is power in the spoken word, and when Jareth makes a careless wish, the Labyrinth grants his request. Jareth finds himself walking the torturous paths of his own Labyrinth in Sarah's fifteen-year-old mortal body. His powers are intact, but somewhat limited by the sentient Labyrinth. Sarah, meanwhile, finds herself back in the underground, but this time she is lounging on Jareth's stone throne, holding a two-year-old Toby in her lap, surrounded by rambunctious goblins, and trapped in Jareth's body! Will this granted wish lead to a possibly destructive reordering of Aboveground time, or is it simply a chance for a loving villain and a cruel heroine to see each other through new eyes? Not a comedy.  
Chapters: 1a/?  
Status: Incomplete  
Year of Completion: N/A  
  
  
Chapter 1a  
  
The breeze rustled the barn owl's feathers as he perched upon the railing of his mortal's balcony. And that was what she was -- his mortal. True, she had rejected him, denying his love as a diversionary tactic and viewing all that he had done for her through a lens of suspicion, but she was still his. She would always he his, for he had created himself and his realm for the sole purpose of being hers.  
  
The sylph in owl form watched his mortal through the glass of her windows as she slept. Years before she had attracted him with her vivid imagination and her intense desire to be a part of something beyond the realm of mortals. He had chosen her then and ever since had dedicated himself to her service. He had watched her carefully, both in owl form and in the insubstantial state that was most natural to him, determining the best form within which to reach her, waiting for the ideal situation to make himself known. Then, a year ago in mortal time, he had found his chance and taken it.  
  
His mortal had become enthralled with an old play about a girl who had captured the attention and love of an immortal being. In this particular story, the immortal was a Goblin King, and because he loved the girl he had given her the power to wish beings away into his realm. His mortal had, of course, embellished the tale in her mind, pretending that the Goblin King's love was romantic in nature, and that he had given her the power to wish away her half-brother, who she was often forced to baby-sit. The sylph watched the play of her thoughts, listened carefully to her sleeping dreams, and by the time she said the words, calling the goblins to take the child away, he had been ready.  
  
His form had been chosen, a blending of a plastic figurine of an elven royal, complete with staff and crystal sphere, and the photographs of the handsome actor that had co-starred in films with his mortal's birth mother. It felt unusual to be in a solid form and not be avian, but he had fashioned the body with the greatest of care and purpose. The silky, untamed hair of the palest hues, the mysterious, mismatched eyes of blue and gray, and the fair perfection of his skin recollected her expectations of the appearance of a Tuatha de Danaan. The rest was designed to be the epitome of his mortal's combined curiosity and fear of the male form, and the flashy costume, with its chest-baring shirts and skin-tight trousers, drew attention to those parts that held his mortal's most secret interest. In this form he could be more to her than an unseen spirit or an unusually tame owl; he could be her lover, her partner in the exploration of things new to them both. In this form she could love him in return.  
  
The realm had also been crafted by the time she called upon him. It was a realm that mixed her expectations of a fantasy realm with the things she had surrounded herself with in her mortal life. An imposing gothic castle of stone was vital to this realm, for in his mortal's mind only such a structure could be home for a powerful immortal. She understood nothing of the freedom that accompanied being without form or structures of stone, but he wished to serve her, so he created such a castle. It had winding dark hallways, mysterious locked doors, magic mirrors, and a room containing nothing but twisting stairways, a room whose design he had taken from a framed poster on the wall of her room. It also had a large throne room and a stone throne on a dais, as she had imagined, although he doubted she had imagined how uncomfortable such a throne could be.  
  
The imposing gothic castle of stone stood proudly in the center of a winding maze, called the Labyrinth, that had been fashioned after a wooden game that sat upon her shelf. Often he had watched in spirit form as she traced her fingers through the winding wooden paths meant for marbles; often he had listened to her thoughts as she wondered what it would be like to truly be in such a place, full of dead ends and dark pits that could swallow you up and draw you into the space below the game, the space filled with only emptiness. She had imagined such a Labyrinth would be sentient, changing its paths to confuse its travelers, harboring unexpected dangers, but with its powers tempered by a controlling force that could manipulate it at will. He had created it to her specifications, sentient and magical, but under his control.  
  
A Goblin King must have goblins, so he had designed these creatures as she had imagined them in a sleeping dream -- furry and mischievous -- instead of fashioning them after the true goblins, which were truly gruesome, evil, and cruel. He was glad for this, as he had no desire to surround himself with true goblins, although he would have done such if it had been her expectation. These goblins in her sleeping dream were unintelligent and obeyed their king more because of threats than innate loyalty. They also were messy, noisy, and had free reign of the throne room, although they lived in their own city, which shared with the castle the space at the center of the Labyrinth.  
  
He also created the Labyrinth's creatures from her expectations, using her playthings as his blueprints for their forms. Plush toys, figurines, and even an ornamental bookend were used in his designs. Some creatures had a true purpose, such as a pair of talking doorknockers that guarded the entrance to the dark forest, a necessary addition to a fantasy realm, and the helping hands, which would act as a safety net if his mortal were to fall into one of the pits that littered the Labyrinth, mimicking the pits in her game. Other creatures would have no purpose until his mortal or the sentient Labyrinth gave them purpose, but his mortal was an imaginative mortal, and would no doubt assign them their purposes early in the game.  
  
  
***  
  
Author's Notes: I would like to thank Little Magpie for her wonderful analysis of the movie Labyrinth and especially of the character Jareth. I have integrated her analysis into my story shamelessly! Also, I have written more than I have posted, so when I have at least 10 reviews, I will post the next chapter. Please, let it be tonight! I am so excited about this idea! 


	2. 1b

Chapter 1b  
  
It was in fact in the guise of a game that he planned to introduce his mortal to their newly created realm, and then one evening he got his chance. He had been in owl form, watching her practice lines from the play about the Goblin King, when he recognized the passage of time in the mortal realm. He brought about a breeze to distract her from her performing and remind her of the time, but she ignored the loving caresses he bestowed upon her chestnut locks of hair and the hem of her costume. Disappointed, he brought about a gentle rain to encourage her inside, but he misjudged in his annoyance at having been ignored yet again, and the gentle rain was a downpour before his mortal, sopping wet and an hour late, arrived home.   
  
His mortal was in an unusually foul mood that evening, angry that weather and time had intruded upon her playtime in the park, hurt that her father and step-mother were more upset that she had made them late for a date then concerned that she had been thoroughly drenched in the storm, and then frustrated when the step-brother refused to cease his crying and fall asleep. He felt sorry for the child, who cried because it was frightened by the violent storm he had unwittingly unleashed, and his mortal's moodiness and harsh tones did little to sooth its fears, but he would not interfere unless he was called upon by his mortal to do so, such was the extent of his entrapment to her.  
  
Flustered by her own troubles, his mortal finally did call upon him and his game. She said the fated words, summoning the comical goblin-creatures he had created to take the baby away to their new realm. When she noticed the child's absence, he flew into her parent's bedroom in owl form and then appeared to her for the first time in his new Goblin King form, using the winds of the storm to toss about his intricate costume and his beautiful wild locks. She identified him as the Goblin King and was frightened, so he did his very best to be imposing. He gave his voice unnatural harshness, taunting words, and sarcastic tones. He narrowed the beautiful mismatched eyes in false expressions. He twisted the beautiful mouth, created to kiss her mortal lips, into sneers and smirks. He met her expectations very well. He even went so far as to call her by her mortal name, a name that caused him pain to say not because of its meaning, which was Princess, but because the name was Hebrew, the language of God's chosen people.   
  
"What's said is said," he said, presenting to her the wisdom he held closest to his heart, knowing the power of words, but she didn't understand. He presented the crystal sphere to her, an obvious mimic of the elven figurine, but she didn't notice the resemblance. He offered to fulfill all of her dreams if she would but allow them to keep the child, but she imagined him stealing the child away from her, imagined her half-brother's fate to be a transformation into one of the mindless goblin-creatures she herself had designed, and refused him. In mere minutes after seeing his form she had created in him a cruel villain, and her mind screamed for a test, a way to prove to herself that she was not truly the sort of person who would casually wish away a baby to an unspeakable fate. The game had begun, although it was no longer the game he would have chosen, and he was no longer confident this form would win him his mortal's love.  
  
He had been correct in his concerns. He swept his mortal to their new realm, pointing out with a creator's pride the Labyrinth, the crumbling goblin city, and the castle beyond the goblin city, but rather than being impressed with his skill or pleased that she would finally get to traverse a full-sized maze, she swallowed her fear and stated that it didn't look so hard to her. He had produced a 13-hour clock, demonstrating his grasp of a mortal's perception of time, a truly remarkable feat for a Sylph, but she seemed not to care. Her mind was stubbornly clinging to an image of the half-brother she had wished away, and he had to resort to acting threatening to recapture her attention.  
  
That was only the start of his disappointments. The first creature she came across, outside the gates of the Labyrinth, was the dwarf that looked like her bookend. She saw him standing by a pool of water and imagined him urinating in it, which of course the creature then proceeded to do, to his disgust. The creature, which the Labyrinth had named Hoggle, was grouchy and unpleasant, mimicking his mortal's state of mind, and was killing off the illusionary fairies he had created with such loving detail, capturing the beauty of the true fairies he was a distant kin to. Apparently their beauty and purity were deemed a threat by his mortal, for she turned them into bloodthirsty pests, even imagining one into biting her.  
  
When she finally entered the maze, the Labyrinth, which his mortal had wanted to be sentient, decided to be uncooperative, producing only a long pathway stretching infinitely in either direction, with no bends or openings. She ran the path, ignoring his uniquely crafted eye lichen, and it wasn't until she was so tired from running that she wished for some guidance that she noticed a simple worm. She imagined this worm to be cultured and intelligent, for she needed someone smart to solve this first part of the puzzle, giving the lowly worm almost the same accent she had given him, only allowing the worm to be kind, polite, and helpful as she would never allow the Goblin King to be. Pleased at the attention to one of its creatures, the sentient Labyrinth created hidden openings throughout the straight path that truly had not been there moments before. The Labyrinth, of course, was supposed to confuse its travelers, of course, so the worm directed her away from the castle.  
  
Disappointed with the results of his effort and the lack of attention it was getting him with the mortal he loved, he departed from her side, where he had been watching in his unsubstantial form, and reformed the physical and immortal body of the Goblin King in the castle's throne room. He lounged carelessly on the stone throne -- most uncomfortable -- and held the child in his arms, the child whose name was also Hebrew, but also meant, "The Lord is Good."  
  
  
***  
  
Author's Notes: Let me explain his hesitance to use the names Sarah and Toby. In my imagination, things of God would be unnatural to creatures of magic. This may be because mortals were granted souls and immortals were not. It could be because the Bible warns against involvement with magic or magicians. I remember going to a Jewish friend's coming-of-age ceremony, and he told me that he had to learn to read the Torah in Hebrew because it was the language of God's chosen people and was holy. I am a Christian myself, but I see the meaning behind that; meanings and intents can get lost in translation, so it makes more sense for the words of God to be studied in their original language. I am writing the next part right now, so please review so I can post it! Don't worry, I will get to the main point of the story eventually. :) 


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